Nature’s Voice Victorian National Parks Association newsletter | Number 15 | February 2013
Photo: smjbk (flickr), Creative Commons Licence
Fool’s gold: parks face prospecting threat Matt Ruchel VNPA Executive Director
T
he Baillieu Government has instructed the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) to determine which areas in eight eastern Victorian national parks should be opened to recreational gold prospecting. This directive appears to have been based on a little-publicised pre-election promise to the Prospectors and Miners Association of Victoria. The parks are the Alpine, Baw Baw, Croajingolong, Errinundra, Lake Eildon, Lind, Mitchell River and Yarra Ranges national parks, plus Lerderderg State Park west of Melbourne. They match those proposed for prospecting by the association. Of particular concern is that the State Government has restricted the supposedly independent VEAC to recommending which areas in these parks should be opened to prospecting, rather than whether prospecting should be allowed at all. This precludes VEAC from finding that prospecting is incompatible with the parks’ primary goal of conservation, and recommending that it should be excluded altogether. It is clearly a perversion of the greatly respected VEAC process. VEAC’s investigation will also be hampered by the lack of monitoring
Inside
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Alpine cattle grazing decision
Gold panning might be fun for tourists, but allowing prospecting in more parks would extend environmental damage.
of the environmental damage caused by metal detectors, picks, shovels and pans. While prospecting practices can erode streamsides, harm rare plants and spread pathogens such as Phytophthora and Chitrid fungus, detailed evidence is not readily available. This is despite monitoring being promised a decade ago when prospecting was allowed in new parks in the central Victorian goldfields region. Such monitoring never took place. In addition to these central Victorian parks, prospecting is already permitted in most state forests, many reserves and on private land (with permission),
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Locals make a stand for nature
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Logging in red gum parks
further weakening the case for additional prospecting areas. The VEAC investigation will be the most rushed on record, with submissions closing on 18 February and the final report due by 30 April. There will be no draft report and only one period of public consultation. The riches of our parks are their natural and cultural values, not the minerals that might (or might not) be found in them.
Take action Send a submission to VEAC by Monday 18 February. For pointers visit prospecting.vnpa.org.au. More in the enclosed flyer and at veac.vic.gov.au.